Fishermen have radically cut the amount of fish they discard following the success of the UK Government’s ‘Catch Quota’ trials, Fisheries Minister, Richard Benyon has announced.
Last year’s Catch Quota trial was introduced to reduce discards of North Sea cod and for sole in the Western Channel and results show that those participating in the trail have been successful in reducing discards of both stocks to just 0.2%. In 2010, the average discard rates were 38% for North Sea cod trawlers and 28% for Western Channel sole beam trawlers.
Commenting on the trials Fisheries Minister Richard Benyon said: “This is a tremendous result and I applaud the contribution which fishermen have made to this success. I am very pleased that more fishermen have joined the 2012 catch quota scheme and I believe that we can build on the success of last year.”
The UK is testing Catch Quota management which counts what is caught rather than what is landed at port. It is a key tool in reducing the wasteful practice of discards while maintaining a profitable fishing industry.
Discards represent a waste of natural resources and one of the Government’s priorities for reforming the broken Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) is to ensure the practice is eliminated. The UK Government hopes that a reformed CFP can bring an end to discards and believes the best way to do this is through an approach that addresses the problems which are specific to each fishery.
The trial has operated on a voluntary basis and fishermen who join the scheme have to account for everything they take out of the sea and land everything they catch, regardless of size, with CCTV used to check that they are sticking to the rules.
Participating fishermen have also drastically reduced discards of undersized fish of all species to between 0 and 3% of their total catch indicating the effectiveness of selectivity methods being used by the participating fishermen.
